How Far Would You Travel to See a Meatball?

Friday began what would, on Saturday, be dubbed "the worst snow storm this season."  It was so bad, in fact, that on the news you could catch plenty of commentary comparing it/contrasting it with the great 1977 (?) snow storm.  I wasn't alive to catch that one, but this one was pretty hefty.  At 2pm, I get a call from Bobby who tells me that they are closing the county offices.  He is a county prosecutor and if it isn't enough that they normally end their Fridays at 4pm, they also seem to close whenever it might snow.  Normally, this arrangement does not benefit me in the least but on last Friday it just so happened that we carpooled to work.  So, lucky me, I got to leave work early.  Now, the original plan (and the reason we drove in together) is that we were going straight to the hospital after work to see my cousin's newborn baby.  And just to prove to you that I am not in my right mind, we still, in the snow, and in the gridlock, drove to the hospital on the other side of town (and the opposite direction from home) to see the baby.  You might think that leaving early meant we got to beat the traffic, but you would be wrong.  We suffered a miserable 60 minutes for a drive that would normally only take 15 just so I could hold a 2-day-old baby that wasn't even mine.  Of course, in my opinion, it was totally worth it.

But, while holding the precious, teeny, little baby (that my cousin lovingly refers to as his "meatball") I had to sit through the horrific description of the labor and delivery that it took to bring the little cutie into the world.  I will spare you the details, but suffice to say, it involves 18 hours of labor, 2 straight hours of pushing, vomit, an "oh shit" bar, the words "stuck in pelvis," and and emergency C-section.  After hearing that, I thought that maybe I could just get a couple more dogs and call it a day.

But seeing Bobby holding her (awkwardly at first and a little afraid of her wobbly head) made me wish that we were the ones who were having a baby.  Overall, I would put the experience more in the "pro baby" column.  I do already have a cache of onesies, afterall . . .